Abstract:

The Ottoman-Egyptian administration in Sudan received a serious blow from the Mahdist rebellion initiated by Muhammad Ahmad in 1881. After the British invasion of Egypt in 1882, the increasing British influence in the country through Egypt also made a reinforcing effect on the Mahdi movement. Declaring his Mahdiship and associating the salvation of Sudan and the Islamic world with his own struggle, Muhammad Ahmad won many of the battles he fought, increasing his popularity day by day. The rebellion, which essentially began as a reaction against some administrative practices in Sudan, eventually turned into a resistance against British imperialism. The Ottoman State followed the Mahdi movement closely, but did not want to get directly involved in the events in Sudan. Although Sultan Abdulhamid II was worried that the movement would cross the Red Sea and reach the Hejaz, he did not accept the British proposals to organize a joint operation in Sudan through Suakin. He thought that such an intervention in Sudan would be inappropriate and would harm the caliphate. According to him, in order to solve the Mahdi problem, first of all, England needed to leave Egypt. However, the attempts of the Sublime Porte in this direction did not yield any results, and Sudan moved further and further away from the Ottoman Empire with each passing day. The Mahdists won significant victories against the Egyptian-British soldiers, but the state founded by Muhammad Ahmad did not last long and was destroyed by the British after a while. Drawing on Turkish, Arabic, English sources and Ottoman archival documents, this essay analysed and assessed the course of the Mahdi movement in Sudan until the death of Muhammad Ahmad (1885), the attitude of the Ottoman Empire towards the Mahdi rebellion, and Britain’s intervention in the regional events.

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